What’s New?

Introducing Thomas (behind) & Patrick (in front).

It’s the first day of fall & we have our first of three fall calves on the ground already. So, what else is new around Hope Refuge Farm this fall? Well, we have some exciting stuff going on! For the first time in our 8+ years of raising Dexters, our breeding program has produced some bull calves that we feel are high enough quality to be kept & registered as breeding bulls. Not just one, but two exceptional boys. That is exciting for us, because we can see our breeding program moving forward & our calves improving in quality. What’s really neat is that these two boys were born within weeks of their sire, Rousseau, leaving the farm for his new home. So, we are happy & proud to introduce Patrick & Thomas!

NewHope St Patrick’s Luck

Patrick is such a handsome, solid bull calf.

We were impressed with Patrick from birth. He was structurally correct, and a nice stout, solid calf, with the wonderful disposition that Rousseau so faithfully passes on. He has grown into a handsome looking weanling who is quite the mellow boy. His dam is a wonderful Legend cow with a good strong udder & a sweet, friendly temperament.

Patrick, square & correct.

Patrick seems to be a nice combination of Rousseau & Tama Titanium, his maternal grandsire. Patrick is homozygous polled also, so all his calves will be polled…no worries about dehorning! We are pleased to offer Patrick for sale, and you can learn more about him on his page in the Sale Barn.

NewHope Thomas Jefferson

Thomas is really new around here! He is a product of our breeding program, but he wasn’t born here. We sold Trixie as a bred cow & kept in touch with her new owners. Curious to see how our linebreeding experiment worked, we were anxious to see little 3 month old Thomas Jefferson, as they had dubbed him, when we delivered Euchee Creek’s Red Lamont to their farm. I was immediately fairly certain that Thomas was built even better than Patrick, and that has proven to be true now that we see them side-by-side. We picked up Thomas last week & brought him home, so the brothers are making friends with each other.

Thomas looks like a smaller version of Rousseau…so stocky!

We are really impressed with this little man. Trixie doesn’t seem to have passed any of Ladybell’s faults along, and so Thomas appears to be all Frederick. He is quite the stocky fellow, with Rousseau’s super sweet, friendly disposition. It will be very interesting to see how he matures. I do think Thomas will be here to stay for a while! A big, huge “thank you!” to Dan & Tara for allowing us to purchase him back.

Thomas has excellent width between the legs.

Website

We have also made some fun changes to the website over the summer, if you haven’t noticed them yet. Check out the “Sale Barn” page to find animals for sale. What’s new in the sale barn? We now have a page dedicated to AI semen sales. Rousseau is the only bull from which we currently have straws available, but check back for future additions…and that’s all I can say right now!

We’ve also expanded the “Breeding Program” page to include listings of our Foundation Cows & Herdsires Past. We decided this was a good way to give a place of honor to the animals that have been important influences on our herd. It will showcase the Dexters that have since moved on, who have made our herd what it is today. Hope you enjoy!

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About Us

A small farm nestled in the mountains of Northeast Kentucky. Here, I’m breeding and raising ADCA-registered Irish Dexter cattle, with a purpose to produce high quality, dual purpose, purebred Dexter breeding stock; and raising/training small family milk cows.

Irish Dexter Cattle

Dexters are a small, tri-purpose cattle breed, being raised for milk, meat and draft. They are not miniature cattle; they were initially bred as a naturally small bovine and they have maintained their small, hardy constitution to the present.